Meeting and Events

Diversity Summit

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About the Diversity Summit

Population growth of people of color in the United States has outpaced that of white Americans for the past two decades, and by 2043 the U.S. Census Bureau projects the nation to become a majority-minority nation. The shifting demographics of our nation are not reflected in the field of landscape architecture where African Americans and Latinx together account for 17 percent of graduating landscape architecture students. New perspective is needed to ensure that landscape architecture reflects the communities it serves.

In 2013, ASLA convened its first Diversity Summit with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of why landscape architecture is failing to attract a more diverse profile. Each summit has brought together a group of experienced and emerging landscape architects who identify as African American or Latinx to develop strategies that address diversity issues in the field.

In 2017, the Diversity SuperSummit convened the largest group of attendees to date. Participants evaluated goals from previous summits, developed focus areas for four key diversity initiatives to guide ASLA’s work plan in the coming year, and discussed the future of the Diversity Summit. Focus items and initiatives will continue to be established and evaluated as ASLA plans future Summits. The following includes links to resources, news and articles, and Summit reports published since the first Diversity Summit convened in 2013.

Your Path to Landscape Architecture: A brochure was created in 2013 to introduce the profession to junior high and high school guidance counselors, with an ask that ASLA members personally deliver them to under-represented schools. Since then, ASLA has received some 250 commitments from chapters, members, and students to do so, and we still are distributing it.

Diverse Voices: Marking the first Diversity Summit in 2013, ASLA filmed and edited videos of the original participants in two films. Links of these videos were shared with all Landscape Architecture program chairs and ASLA Chapter leadership to adopt for their own use, and posted to the ASLA career discovery webpage. To date, they have received several thousand views.

The Diversity Summit Call for Letters of Interest has closed for the 2018 Diversity Summit. If you are interested in participating, lookout for new resources as they become available and learn how you can participate in future summits.